The Black List definitely has a rough start. The pilot is, frankly, weird, with very little idea who these characters are and almost no thought given to why we should care. Our lead female agent is completely forgettable and doesn't seem to have any real idea what's going on. The rest of the FBI team are caricatures and lazy tropes. And even Red – our mysterious mastermind – comes across as less enticing and more hackney. But there's still something inherently interesting about the premise: one of the FBI's "Most Wanted" willingly turns himself in and claims to be able to deliver criminals that are so far outside of the FBI's league that they aren't even aware that they exist. This is the so-called "black list", a joke on the fact that Red is supposedly a "red list" criminal (i.e. Most Wanted and on all international watch lists), and yet considers himself small fry compared to the rest.

Of course, there's an issue here: for the show to work we have to simultaneously believe that the Black List – and evidence of a criminal social strata so good at their jobs as to be invisible to law enforcement – is very real, but also that Red is somehow simultaneously a bigger fish (someone who appears to be playing both sides) and yet also worse than them all, as the FBI have been hunting him for years. You just have to ignore that. Like a lot of what the pilot sets up, to be honest. The whole baby/adoption plot line? Ignore it. The fact that our lead is a profiler? It'll basically never come up again.

Still, that core premise around a wanted criminal basically going into business with a Black Site (yes, a likely secondary pun) FBI squad means we get interesting, supervillain-esque plots, alongside questions of morality versus legality. Nothing that hasn't been done before, but it's still fun.

Really, the show's saving graces are twofold:

• Once the central idea is set up and running, the dual-mysteries around why Red is so interested in this one otherwise unexceptional FBI agent and what exactly has brought him out of the shadows now, along with the subsequent subplots around Tom, her husband; Sam, her father; and the various double-twists and confusions that ensue, all add up to some pretty interesting and engaging storytelling (even if the characters themselves never get a huge amount of work, Tom aside);
• And the villains of the week are actually often pretty interesting. The early episodes feature kidnappers and extortion rackets, nothing too unusual. But some of the later plots are novel and intriguing (e.g. a facilitator who "disappears" people by cosmetically altering victims and having them killed in tragic accidents, so that the wrong people are assumed dead; or a vigilante "judge" who punishes cops, lawyers, and others who falsely imprisoned people by doing the same to them).

The result is a show which consistently improves itself. It's (thankfully) answered quite a few of the questions posed earlier, whilst keeping enough cards hidden to keep you pleasantly confused as to what's actually going on, and the foundations that have now been set around the mysterious Berlin, Red's full involvement in Elizabeth's past, and, of course, who ranks higher than our current antagonists on the Black List, well, those all mean we'll definitely be returning for season two.

We'd been a bit concerned that The Black List would just try to keep dragging out the mystery that it started with – a criticism that is often levelled at The Mentalist (though I'd say unfairly) – and continue serving curveballs around Keen's parentage, Red's relationship to her, and Tom's loyalty. Thankfully, season two has decided to just scream ahead on all fronts, and leaves us with a very different show to the one that we started with. They're just about continuing the "monster of the week" format, but it gets forgotten more often than remembered, and with the task force now in disarray, Keen on the run, and Tom exonerated, it's not so much a new game, as an entirely new board and set of pieces.

I'm also glad that the Cabal have been refocused as the main villain. They were set up nicely in the first season, and I thought the escalation here has worked well. They work well as a foil to Red, and they also give him a redeemable purpose. Whilst we're yet to fully understand what made him go AWOL and become a career criminal, the pieces are beginning to slot into place that the Cabal may well be the primary cause. Whether he discovered them as a Special Investigator and realised that they could only be brought down from outside the system, or was forced out to save his own skin, is still unclear, but it's a nice evolution. Ditto the constant revelations around Keen's parents, how Tom came into her life, and where Red fits into it all.

But above all else, season two gave us much more of a look into the rest of the cast. I'm still not too sure how the Mossad operative truly fits into things, and I'm beginning to wonder if the original female operative's death was more of a recasting choice than anything else, but I like the mystery so far. I've also enjoyed seeing the descent of the station Chief, as a simple favour turns into a spiral of blackmails, turns into a genuinely unexpected twist. I'm less sure of Keen's own descent; her slow collapse to the dark side, buckling under the strain of never knowing who to trust. It's not unbelievable, and I think the actress is really finding a solid place for the character, but I'm not sure it's fully fleshed out or thought through just yet. We'll see.

At any rate, we finished the season with a vague thought of moving onto something else for a while, but found ourselves immediately drawn back in, so it does feel like it's steadily improving.

Okay, so this was a long season for us. We started it back in March, and then kind of dipped out at multiple points. And yet somehow I still can't quite believe how much they covered! We start with Red and Liz on the run, having just killed a major US politician. We learn more about her heritage, her mother, her real name, and the Cabal, all of which culminates in the public becoming aware of the secretive organisation, several key members being arrested or killed, and the charges against Liz largely being dropped. She can't go back to being an Agent, but she can be a contractor. And somehow that's not even 50% of the way through the season 😅

In the second half, Liz gets pregnant, falls back in love with Tom (who also somehow was exonerated, not sure when that happened any more), we get a brief bit of the actual Black List stuff cropping up again, but all against a backdrop of increasingly ramping fears around some new shadowy figure that appears to be out for Liz now that her original identity has been uncovered. Which brings us to the weirdest final third of a show's season in ages! We go from "I guess Tom's back" to "we're getting married today!" very quickly, then the wedding results in a drawn out attack and attempted abduction, which itself concludes with an even more lengthy and over the top sequence of events which sees the baby born and Liz, well, die. I have to say, I didn't see that part coming – I was actually getting a bit bored of how long and dramatic everything was becoming, because with seven seasons left, we weren't about to see the main character killed off. As a result, I remained unconvinced until the end of the season, when we finally get the pay-off that she was still alive, but I have to admit, they committed to the bit extremely well.

Not only was her death surprisingly moving and well reacted to, but they really sat with it, giving us multiple episodes of genuine grief and mourning. The immediate aftermath episode may well be one of my favourite; Cape May is a riveting psychological thriller with Red and the ghost of Liz's mother, with just enough signposting to help you work out what's going on, and just enough red herrings to keep you guessing a little. I'm also a fan of the whole Artax network, and throwing Tom's mother into the mix was a nice curveball that almost had me sold on the show actually progressing without Agent Keane, but then they had Red request a full pardon for her and I was like, ah, okay, so that's how they plan to reset the clock 😉

Still, I did enjoy the whole mystery over grown-up Jean Grey and the many revelations about Liz's family. I don't fully trust the new father on the scene, but we do seem to be getting quite a few answers at long last. And if you can argue that the show does feel like it's painting itself into a corner from whence the original premise will be a hard sell to bring back (again, there are so many more seasons!), you can't argue that the pace hasn't been quite exhilarating. I'm glad we're moving away from the Cabal and getting more answers about both Tom and Liz's backgrounds. I'm just not sure what happens after the whole father-issues bit is dealt with, and I do worry that the stakes have been escalated a little too far, too early. Time will tell!

I enjoyed the fourth season, but it definitely wavered a little. The initial re-focusing on the questions around Liz's parentage were interesting, and I enjoyed the whole back and forth around her constant abductions and altercations with this new purported "father" on the scene, though it did also get a little ridiculous at moments. Still, Kirk was an interesting villain, and the final showdown between him and Red was a brilliant episode with some very clear character development and interesting revelations. Unfortunately, whilst the main driving plots we get after this wraps up are needed to tie off some of the many dangling threads, I'm not sure they really fall into place that well.

Don't get me wrong, I particularly enjoyed Dembe's framing and the subsequent confusion, particularly as a clear parallel with what happened to Kate, which helps to show that Red is losing the ability to tell who is or isn't on his side. And I'm also very happy that we finally get a solid backstory for Mr. Kaplan (including where that name came from!); I even enjoyed the way they intertwined her past with Liz's, as it gave us a new perspective on her mother and early childhood. It was also a solid idea to see her cripple Red so completely ‒ who knows, it may even solve some of the power creep he's been getting of late! But even with all of that, it doesn't feel like the ending is that satisfying, nor does it set up much for the next season. Sure, so it seems that Liz is Red's daughter after all (not sure how I feel about that), but the whole "mum's skeleton in a buried suitcase" thing is just... weird 😅 I'm not sure how that counts as a mystery on the same level as the ones that have come before 🤔

Thankfully, we also get a couple of solid, interesting, one-shot episodes. Aram continues to be an absolute delight and I loved his undercover episodes, as well as his whole courtroom ethics dilemma and his honeytrap-turned-girlfriend partner (even if it was mainly an excuse to postpone the inevitable kiss between him and Samar). Speaking of, I also thought her undercover Mossad operation episode was great fun and a useful nod back to her original purpose. But still, the show is feeling increasingly strained by the ridiculous position its put itself in, and I would quite like it to revert to being a monster-of-the-week formula a little bit more. Also, where the hell has Tom been and why is he double-crossing Liz again! And who's looking after the kid! 😅